Romance
The majority of young single women in Summerside were very keen to meet the uniformed Air Force men who began to frequent the town in 1941. Many of the eligible local men had enlisted in the services and were gone from the area. The young trainees or airmen at the Station were in their late teens or early twenties and shared the girls' interest in dating and having a good time. The men who later came to the No. 10 Bombing and Gunnery School in Mount Pleasant were fond of the girls as well. When that school closed in 1945, a few airmen circled the town in a plane and dropped an 18-foot drogue (fabric target) inscribed with affectionate messages to "the girls of Summerside."
Some couples established lifetime relationships. The first wedding involving a local girl to be reported in the Summerside Journal was between Isabel Jean Llewellyn and LAC Ralph Perry VanAlstine of Napanee, Ontario. They were married in July 1941 at the bride's home on Cedar Street. Chaplain Higgins performed the ceremony with an RCAF Honour Guard in attendance. Many more weddings followed, as local women became brides of airmen stationed here.
Bert Hunter and Wanda Mill
Bertrum (Bert) Hunter came to RCAF Station Summerside in the summer of 1942 and fell in love with an Island girl. He had joined the Air Force in 1941, leaving his family home in Langley, British Columbia. He graduated as a Pilot Officer from the No. 2 SFTS in Uplands, near Ottawa. His first posting was to the No. 2 Air Navigation School in Charlottetown, PEI where he was asked to stay on as a Staff Pilot after he completed the navigation course. When the No. 1 GRS opened in July 1942 he and several of his fellow officers were transferred to Summerside. They lived in the Officers' Quarters and on weekends took a bus or taxi into town to socialize at Chan's Restaurant and at the Maple Leaf Garden, the popular dance hall.
It was during a dance that he met nineteen-year-old Wanda Mill who was there with some friends. After an evening of fun, she asked if he would like to visit her home sometime. Wanda, who worked at the Sinclair & Stewart department store, boarded with the Wyatt sisters from September 1942 to May 1943. On the weekends she visited her parents, Cecil and Theresa Mill, who farmed at Mills Point in Clermont, a rural community about eight miles east of Summerside. The family was happy to welcome Bert as a frequent visitor.
Romance blossomed quickly. On February 1, 1943 Wanda Wyatt recorded in her diary, "Big news today - Wanda Mill received a diamond from Bert Hunter. She is very thrilled."
Bert had been posted to Vancouver in January and he and Wanda sent letters back and forth. When he was reassigned to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, they planned the wedding so that she could go with him. The ceremony and reception took place in the bride's home in Clermont on May 24, 1943. The best man was an Air Force friend, Bob MacAlpine, from Scotland and the matron of honour was Wanda's girlfriend Marjorie (Milligan) MacDougall. The newlyweds borrowed the Mill family car and travelled to Charlottetown for a brief honeymoon.
In Yarmouth Bert was a Canso pilot in the No. 162 Squadron and flew with a crew of eight in anti-submarine patrols over the North Atlantic. He went on to a posting in Iceland and Wanda moved back to PEI to live with her parents. Bert was in the middle of a flight to Scotland when a wireless message announced the birth of their first child, Carol, on June 6, 1944.
He was posted back to Summerside in May 1945 to wait for his discharge. The couple with their daughter rented a room at the Wyatt home and made plans for the future. When his service career ended on August 30, 1945 he was ready to study optometry in Toronto. Wanda moved back with her parents while Bert completed a three-year program with summers spent on the Island and visits for Christmas.
Upon his graduation in 1948 he established an optometry practice that lasted until 1991. His office was located upstairs in the Smallman building on Water Street. He and his wife moved into a brand new home on Schurman Avenue in 1951 and raised five daughters.
Over the years they visited British Columbia many times to maintain ties with his family, but they never considered living any place except PEI. Wanda felt a strong connection to her family and friends and it was assumed from the beginning of the marriage that they would live in Summerside where fate had brought them together.
